The liver is the largest internal organ of a human body which weighs approximately 3 pounds in an adult’s body. This organ is located just below the diaphragm on the right side of the abdomen.
The liver performs many important and complex functions in a human body. They are as follows.
The liver performs many important and complex functions in a human body. They are as follows.
- It produces most proteins that are regular needs of the body.
- It metabolizes or breaks down the nutrients from food so that it can produce energy when needed.
- Liver prevents shortages of nutrients by storing certain vitamins, sugar and minerals.
- Liver also produces bile which is a compound needed to digest fat and absorb vitamins like A, D, K and E.
- It produces most of the substances that regulate blood clotting.
- This organ helps your body to fight infection attacks and remove the bacteria from blood.
- Liver also removes the potential toxic by products of certain medications.
There are many liver transplant hospitals in India where one can contact of they or their near and dear ones need a liver transplantation. Now the question is when does one needs to go for a liver transplantation? Well, it is needed when the liver no longer functions adequately and one faces a liver failure. There are two major causes behind this failure. There is an acute or sudden failure from infection or complications from certain medications. Or else there is a long term liver failure which is more common. This long term lover failure again has a lot of reasons.
- Long term or chronic hepatitis.
- Biliary cirrhosis which is a rare condition in which the immune system inappropriately attacks and then destroys the bile ducts causing this liver failure.
- Then there is scarring and narrowing of bile ducts which happens both inside and outside of the liver. This causes the back up of bile in lover causing liver failure.
- Malformation of bile ducts. This is a very common cause for liver transplantations among children.
- Heavy alcohol consumption can lead to liver failure.
- Wilson’s disease. This is a rare and inherited disease in which the copper is deposited abnormally throughout the body. This includes liver as well.
- Hemochromatosis ( it is an iron overload disease, a common inherited disease in which the body is overwhelmed with iron).
- Liver Cancer
Now whether one needs liver transplantation or not is very much evaluated by the specialists from several fields. They review the patient’s surgical, medical and psycho social history to determine that. There are many health care facilities that offer an interdisciplinary approach to select candidate for liver transplants. The transplant coordinator specializes in the care of liver transplant patients. Then there is a psychiatrist who helps the patient to deal with that issue so that the patient does not suffer from depression. Also there is a nutrition specialist who helps the patient with their diet and food chart after the transplantation is done. Because one needs to lead a very strict life post surgery.
